Natural Cosmetics Pilot

Responsible Partners: SYMBEEOSIS LONG LIVE LIFE S.A.

Pilot description

The Natural Cosmetics pilot intends to gather samples of vineyard by-products across the Greek territory. There is a need to extract the most out of pharmaceutical plants for both economic and environmental reasons. A real challenge is to add high value to by-products. Wine making produces a lot of by-products that may have a significant biological value if there are adequate data concerning farm management. These data can lead to decisions concerning the processing of by-products in order to produce high added value active ingredients for cosmetics and food supplements. Bioactive compounds from winery by-products have disclosed interesting health promoting activities both in vitro and in vivo. If properly recovered, they show a wide range of potential and remunerative applications in many industrial sectors, including cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, biomaterials and food. In fact, winemaking by-products are outstanding sources of oil, phenolic compounds and dietary fibre and possess numerous health benefits and multifunctional characteristics, such as antioxidant, colouring, antimicrobial and texturizing properties.

The specific goal

The scenario presumes that precision farming and control of parameters linked to the quality of wine (soil characteristics, GIS data etc) may provide by-products of superior quality. In particular, the pilot intends to gather samples of vineyard by-products across the Greek territory and more specifically vine leaves of two different grape varieties (Agiorgitiko and Mandilaria) and test their phytochemical profile and biological value after extraction.

Site Description

Two important indigenous grape varieties (Agiorgitiko and Mandilaria) were chosen for the needs of the Natural Cosmetics pilot. Samples of these two varieties were selected from sixteen vineyards from four regions of the Greek territory, namely Peloponnese, Northern Greece, Aegean and Crete.

Expected Timeline

Measurements related to the Natural Cosmetics pilot will take place during the whole duration of the project. The collection of samples from the chosen vineyards will be repeated every year, following extraction using two different methods and measurements of biological efficacy of developed extracts.

Envisaged Outcomes

Bioactive compounds found in wine-making by-products such as vine leaves possess multifunctional characteristics and show a wide range of potential and remunerative applications, concerning health promoting activities. Nevertheless, the quality of these by-products and more specifically their biological efficacy can vary depending on multiple parameters, such as the origin of the sample, the recovery process and more.

The collected data from the natural cosmetics pilot will provide the necessary information for the evaluation of the quality of each sample, linked with the special characteristics of the vineyard of origin. The goal is to face the challenge: "how data from the field can be linked to the biological efficacy of final products - an application on wine making by-products".